Trading methods have evolved from a manually intensive process to a technology enabled, electronic platform. Advances in technology are having an increasingly large and broad impact on trading and the way in which exchanges conduct business. What was previously seen as just a supplement to the traditional pit trading, electronic trading platforms continue to increase in importance and popularity. The advent of electronic trading has meant that a customer can be in virtually direct contact with the market, from practically anywhere in the world, performing near real-time transactions.
To access a market to trade in, buyers and sellers (or traders) log onto an electronic exchange through their user terminals, which are connected to the exchange over a network. Examples of a user terminal include a personal computer, laptop, or workstation. The user terminal may implement a Microsoft Windows-type operating system to provide a graphical user interface based on windowed regions on the user terminal screen and an input device such as a mouse and keyboard. Certainly, the user terminal may include other types of modern computing devices, input devices and might use other types of operating systems such as a Macintosh or Unix-type operating system to trade in a market.
Sometimes traders use software running on the user terminals to create specialized interactive trading screens. Oftentimes, the interactive trading screens enable people to manually enter orders into the market, obtain market quotes, and monitor positions. Of course, the range and quality of features available varies according to the specific software application being run.
In addition to, or in place of, manual-style trading, traders might use automated or semi-automated software to assist them in executing their trading strategies. As such, there are all sorts of software tools available that traders can use to automate or semi-automate the way that they trade. In fact, Trading Technologies International, Inc. of Chicago, Ill. provides automated or semi-automated trading tools that a trader might use to enhance their trading. For example, the TT Autospreader and the TT Autotrader are examples of software tools provided by Trading Technologies International, Inc. that automate aspects of trading such as automated order management and automatic execution of basic-to-complex trading strategies, just to name a few. Trading tools can be flexible, and therefore, they may be open to the trader for programming, or they may exist in a black-box form. Traders may simultaneously use one or more different types of automated or semi-automated trading tools. In addition, traders may have more than one session running a particular trading tool.
There are many instances when an automated or semi-automated trading tool is watching or leaning on a tradable object's available quantities and prices, and plan to buy or sell them as soon as a certain event occurs. In other words, the trading tool may use this “leaned on” market information in implementing its trading strategy. Once the event occurs, for example, the trading tool might then send an order to buy or sell the “leaned on” tradable object to complete a particular transaction. However, unbeknownst to the trading tool, another trading tool might be interested in the same quantity for the same tradable object. When both events occur such that both of the trading tools act on the same “leaned on” tradable object, a conflict may exist. This conflict may risk, among other things, one or more incomplete transactions and/or a potential unexpected loss of money for the trader.
In electronic trading systems, such as the one described above or in some other type of computer-based trading system, it is desirable for a trader to have tools in a software, hardware, or software/hardware form that can assist the trader in executing his or her trading strategy while reducing the risks associated with running multiple sessions of automated or semi-automated trading tools.